promising vs successful

promising

adj
  • Showing promise, and likely to develop in a desirable fashion. 

  • a promising young apprentice 

  • Encouraging and inspiring confidence. 

noun
  • The act of making a promise. 

successful

adj
  • Resulting in success; assuring, or promoting, success; accomplishing what was proposed; having the desired effect 

How often have the words promising and successful occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )